The first step to charting your family tree is to get your family all lined up on family group sheets and pedigree sheets.
These may be printed off for no cost from the internet or you can find the sheets in books.
If you have no access to the internet, you can figure out your own method of writing a chart, although that will take time and effort.
I think the easiest way to chart by hand is to get a large piece of heavy paper and put your ancestors on the top, with their birth, marriage and death date, place of birth, marriage and death date, then branch that into children, spouses birth, marriage, death date and so on.
You can then make a separate chart for each child, spouse and their family.
It really helps to see the whole family at once.
You can readily see how to spend your next research time.
Do this rough draft for all the family members before you start a more formal chart.
Next, decide on what chart you want.
It depends on the size of your family and how many members you want to put on the chart.
If you go past five or six generations you will want a vertical chart with you at the bottom center, parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc going up.
A standard left to right pedigree chart would become too tall.
Pedigree charts are standard for five or six generations.
It starts with a single individual at the left with parents, grandparents, and the rest filling it in on the right.
Some people want to add every single cousin they can find and that chart becomes cumbersome.
I like a descendant fan chart with the starting individual in the center and the rest fanning out in rings.
Pictures on those charts are not recommended.
It depends on how many individuals you want on the chart and how much information you want included.
You will be surprised how large those charts can become.
Some are as large as football fields with pages and pages.
The third step is deciding what you want to do with your information.
Family tree software is designed to make it easy to record persons with the documentation you found and organize it into a family tree.
You may then print your own favorite chart or you may send it to companies who specialize in printing family tree charts.
So far my family is just in notebooks for each branch and stored online in a software program.
These may be printed off for no cost from the internet or you can find the sheets in books.
If you have no access to the internet, you can figure out your own method of writing a chart, although that will take time and effort.
I think the easiest way to chart by hand is to get a large piece of heavy paper and put your ancestors on the top, with their birth, marriage and death date, place of birth, marriage and death date, then branch that into children, spouses birth, marriage, death date and so on.
You can then make a separate chart for each child, spouse and their family.
It really helps to see the whole family at once.
You can readily see how to spend your next research time.
Do this rough draft for all the family members before you start a more formal chart.
Next, decide on what chart you want.
It depends on the size of your family and how many members you want to put on the chart.
If you go past five or six generations you will want a vertical chart with you at the bottom center, parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc going up.
A standard left to right pedigree chart would become too tall.
Pedigree charts are standard for five or six generations.
It starts with a single individual at the left with parents, grandparents, and the rest filling it in on the right.
Some people want to add every single cousin they can find and that chart becomes cumbersome.
I like a descendant fan chart with the starting individual in the center and the rest fanning out in rings.
Pictures on those charts are not recommended.
It depends on how many individuals you want on the chart and how much information you want included.
You will be surprised how large those charts can become.
Some are as large as football fields with pages and pages.
The third step is deciding what you want to do with your information.
Family tree software is designed to make it easy to record persons with the documentation you found and organize it into a family tree.
You may then print your own favorite chart or you may send it to companies who specialize in printing family tree charts.
So far my family is just in notebooks for each branch and stored online in a software program.